Saturday, January 24, 2009

Absinthe Cupcakes!

Last night, my friend Greg celebrated his 29th birthday. He hates sweets (yes, he is crazy), but I discovered last year that he will eat cake if there's booze in it. Last year, I made Bacardi 151 cupcakes. They were a huge hit, but I didn't wanna repeat myself this year. So I scoured the internets for ideas and found a recipe for Vegan Absinthe Cupcakes:

Lucky for me, the people who used to live in my house left behind a bottle of Absente brand absinthe. I'm no fan of the stuff since I hate the licorice-y flavor of anise. But Greg prides himself on a prized bottle of absinthe that he snuck onto the plane back from Scotland a couple years ago. So I knew he'd appreciate these.

The verdict? Greg ate two, so he must have liked them. And the anise flavor wasn't overpowering like I thought it'd be. Not my favorite cupcakes, but not bad. Other people raved. You either love licorice flavors or you hate them.

On another sweet note, I woke up early today to make Lemon Bars from The Joy of Vegan Baking:

Food Awareness, our local veggie group, held a meeting and potluck today to discuss our plan to get vegetarian options on the menu for Memphis City Schools lunches. My contribution were these bars, and man, were they good! I adore lemon-flavored everything, and the buttery shortbread crust was to die for. I'll be making these again.

I had to re-order Papa Tofu since I gave my old copy away, and Amey was super sweet and offered to gift me a copy of her adorable little zine. I can't wait to make her borcsht and Kittee's stuffed tofu pockets and injera.

34 comments:

Blogger isn't letting me comment - grrrr! You're a great friend to make boozy treats for your birthday buddies! I didn't know you couldn't get Absinthe in the South.I really need to order me a copy of Papa Tofu before they're all gone!

I'm with you on the "not a fan of licorice" thing, but so thoughtful of you to make the cupcakes for your friend who does like the flavor! Well, these do have booze in them, maybe I could eat them afterall. :)

Andy and I got a bottle of absinthe more than two years ago that we brought to his parents house for christmas. No one was game enough to drink any more than a sip--slackers! And like you, I don't like the licoricey-ness of it. But cupcakes is a genius idea. Next time I'm there, I'm totally baking these.

Oh the yummies! Lucky, Lucky Greg!! I got Amey's zine too and already made a few of the recipes. The borscht was awesome, I also made the grilled herbed tofu, diner loaf and you got peanut butter in my chocolate cookies. They were all fantastic! Next on the list will be the cucumber dip... whenever I get around to it!

My name is Bianca ...

About Me

I'm an 11-year vegan, 21-year vegetarian from the Mid-South, not too far from the muddy banks of the Mississippi River. And that means cornbread, butter beans, and collard greens.
These days, I live in Memphis. Check out my cookbook — Cookin' Crunk. It's filled with yummilicious veganized soul food and country classics.